Hiking Sabino Lake Trail to Sabino Dam

Sabino Canyon Travel Blog

My daughter and I hiked the Sabino Canyon Lake Trail all the way to the Dam, it was awesome seeing so much water.

This morning I awoke feeling rather lazy, not the normal kind of lazy however the lazy that tells you something in your system is not right. Coffee did not help, so I made a cup of hot chocolate which seemed to help a bit. After checking my messages on Travbuddy and replying to my e-mails, I decided to go hiking. I always feel good being in nature and with nature. My decision to leave the house was delayed by nothing other than the fact that I would not get myself to walk out the door, weird thing I can't explain. At a little after 10:30 am, Suzanne, my girlfriend whom I have not seen for a while decided to send me an e-mail asking if we could do lunch at 11:30 am at 'The Good Egg'. It happens to be our meeting place every time we meet. Lunch was done by 12:30, so I decided to run a few errands, banking, mailing, etc.

Sabino Lake Trail Hike to Sabino Dam. Mile marker 0

By 2:30 I was still not on the way to hike, can you believe it? Talk of indecissive.

At 3:30 I picked up Desire from school and decided we can go together; she was excited about it which made it easier for me to finally go hiking. We drove to Sabino Canyon at 4:30 pm and decided to take a shorter trail since Desire needed to stop by the bookstore later. I have done many trails in the Canyon but there are many more I'm yet to hike. We decided to take the Lass loop, which takes us to the Sabino Canyon Dam. Can you believe we have a dam in Tucson? Well in Sabino Canyon? If you find yourself in Tucson for either business or pleasure and wish to see some water in the desert, I mean a reasonable amount of water from nature, then take a short hike on the lasso loop to the Sabino Dam.

Me at our destination; Sabino Dam

Desire and I hiked Bear Canyon Trail for 0.8 miles then headed north off of Bear Canyon Trail onto Sabino Lake Trail, we were parallel to the creek for about 0.6 miles. Shortly after passing Bluff Trail, which we took to Upper Sabino Canyon Road, we crossed the creek and headed south on Sabino Dam Trail. Once we got to Sabino Dam Trail, we were literally hiking in the creek bed for about a third of a mile before we got to the dam, in fact before we got close, we could hear the dam roar as it fell down into the creek below. Don't expect anything huge, it's really a small dam probably a third of Aravaipa. We stayed at the dam for a while until we were rested and then retraced our steps back onto SabinoLake Trail, then back to the visitors center.